


Joke’s On You

by kinetikatrue



Category: due South
Genre: Dirty Jokes, M/M, What's Your Filling? Cross-Fandom Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1393672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A good bust, a terrible joke and some donuts. It's life as usual for the denizens of the 47th.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joke’s On You

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://technosage.livejournal.com/profile)[**technosage**](http://technosage.livejournal.com/) 's [What's Your Filling? Cross-Fandom Ficathon](http://technosage.livejournal.com/63935.html). Betaed by [](http://fairestcat.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://fairestcat.livejournal.com/)**fairestcat**. Twisting the rules ever so slightly, here. Hope y'all don't mind.

It had been a great bust. Good and clean. Greatness. And sure, it would have Ray and Fraser’s names on it, but Ray knew they wouldn’t have been able to pull if off if they hadn’t had everybody’s help – even Frannie’s. Even Dewey’s.

Which was why they were all of them squeezed in around a couple of little square tables, the scarred formica tops almost obscured by empty glasses and a few greasy plates.

Everybody’d bought the group a round – from Welsh to Frannie – and even Fraser’d had beer for at least one of his. Ray’d had five - just like all the rest of the guys – plus the sarsaparilla Fraser’d managed to get the bartender to conjure up. There’d been a really greasy burger and fries in there, somewhere, too, which Ray was trying to forget. But he sure hadn’t been drinking water, like Dief, stretched out under the table with his special bowl.

Frannie’d been sitting next to Ray, eating cheese fries and drinking cheap red wine, and shooting longing looks up the table past Ray at Fraser. And Ray’d been ignoring her, listening to Fraser tell stories just to hear him speak, inserting the occasional ‘yeah?’ or ‘huh’ or ‘cool’ as needed. He thought that Frannie’d maybe been listening in, too, but she’d been keeping quiet for once, so Ray hadn’t been worrying about it.

He’d also been ignoring Huey and Dewey’s comedy routine, which stunk more and more the more they had to drink.

Then – and Ray really wasn’t sure how it happened, maybe Dewey waved his hands around too much telling a joke or something, maybe Frannie was just that tipsy, maybe there were invisible glass-knocking-over gremlins running around – Frannie’s latest glass of wine went over and there was red liquid everywhere, all over the table-top, in between the empties, dark as old dried blood against the fake wood of the formica.

Frannie sat there looking stunned, while everybody else threw clumps of paper napkins at the spreading puddle. They looked kinda blood-soaked, too, by the time they were collected up again, to sit dripping in a pile at the side of the table.

Dewey stared at the stack and for a moment it looked like he was going to start snickering. Ray thought Huey maybe kicked him under the table, though, because instead he just smirked.

Welsh went off to the bar to get some more napkins – or maybe a bar towel or a waitress (with her own bar towel). Fraser asked Frannie if he could do anything for her (in Fraser-speak, ‘Francesca, might I be of service in any way?’) and, miracle of miracles, she turned him down. She sat there for a moment longer, looking sloshily awkward, then excused herself to go to the Ladies – and that looked like it was going to be it when it came to excitement that night.

Ray turned back to Fraser to ask him how the story with the mutant herd of elk and their fondness for the town hall’s roof and the girls who wanted to be elk maidens ended. But of course it wasn’t that easy. As soon as Frannie was out of earshot, Dewey grinned, drunk-stupid, and waved at the pile of red-soaked napkins, “That reminds me of that joke.”

“What, the one where the woman’s getting some on the side and her husband comes home early and she has to lock her lover in the closet to hide him, but then she forgets about him and he survives by eating – ,” Huey trailed off, not quite drunk enough to actually want to finish his sentence.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ray could see him waving his hand in the direction of the napkins, but he wasn’t really paying attention. Fraser had stiffened up at the mention of infidelity and Ray was trying his damndest to reassure him with a look, tell him that he had to know that Ray’d never do that to him, that he might not be much else, but fuck if he wasn’t faithful.

“Nah, not that one – I meant the one with the contest.” Dewey sounded like he was looking forward to telling this one, which was a shitty sign, all things considered.

But Fraser did seem to get it, that even if Ray was choosing to ignore Huey and Dewey and their stupid jokes about adultery, and even though he was always going to love Stella, in one way or another, that he didn’t think it was funny. Fraser’d gone a little less stiff, anyway.

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard that one.” And Huey didn’t sound like he was going to stop Dewey from telling whatever joke he wanted to tell. Even sounded a little interested, maybe. Which wasn’t totally unexpected, really, since his sense of humor was almost as dumb as Dewey’s.

And Dewey was off, gleeful as a gossip with ‘news’ to share, “So there’s a Polish guy and an American guy and a German guy, right? And they have this room full of used tampons.”

That was all Ray needed to hear. He looked down at the table and started counting to ten. Dewey did this sometimes. And sometimes it worked. But not tonight. Nothing was going to ruin Ray’s happy tonight.

So Ray looked back up at Fraser and found Fraser already looking at him and obviously wondering if he was gonna have to stop Ray from trying to kick Dewey in the head. Ray grinned at him. Fraser smiled back, obviously real happy. And the two of them just kept grinning at each other, idiotically, ignoring Dewey.

Of course, they couldn’t help hearing the punch-line. Dewey’s voice rose at the end, almost loud enough to carry across the bar, “And the Polish guy yells back, ‘No, not yet! I'm not done eating the jelly donuts.’.” He sat back, looking pleased with himself.

From under the table, Dief whoofed whole-hearted approval. “They’re not real jelly donuts,” Fraser told him, and got a dismissive-sounding grumble for his trouble.

And Ray laughed, which he hadn’t been planning on doing, and said, “You’re definitely in trouble, Dewey, when even Dief thinks your jokes are dumb.”

So Ray was sitting there, with Fraser talking to Dief under the table, telling him that he wasn’t going to go out and buy him donuts right now and Dewey looking like he wanted to mouth off at Ray. Huey gave Dewey a look that made him shut up, looking mutinous. And when Welsh came back a moment later, carrying napkins, Ray figured Huey’d seen Welsh coming and grinned at him

So he grinned at Welsh, too. And Frannie when she got back from the Ladies. And said, “Hey, Lieu, Dewey’s going to buy us all donuts on Monday. Better make sure he writes down the order.”


End file.
